


What you can do for him

by orphean



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 02:09:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13514547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphean/pseuds/orphean
Summary: The affair, if that was ever the right term for it, began after Gabriel Lorca let his fingertips graze the small of Ellen Landry’s back. The touch was brief and innocuous enough to be interpreted by anyone else as accidental, but Landry knew that the captain did nothing by mistake.---Spoilers through 1x4, minor spoilers for 1x12.





	What you can do for him

The affair, if that was ever the right term for it, began after Gabriel Lorca let his fingertips graze the small of Ellen Landry’s back. The touch was brief and innocuous enough to be interpreted by anyone else as accidental, but Landry knew that the captain did nothing by mistake.

He pulled his phaser when he found her in his quarters, and lowered it only when she raised her hands in surrender, slowly walking towards him. When he was a couple of feet away, she unzipped her uniform jacket.

‘This is what you want, isn’t it?’ She kept her eyes fixed on Lorca’s face and he kept her gaze, his eyes only darting down for a second when she pulled her undershirt off.

‘Is it what you want?’ He didn’t move, phaser now holstered, his voice cautious and his hands at his side.

‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

They didn’t speak much after that, one of Lorca’s hands wrapping around her waist and the other pulling her head back by her hair, Landry’s fingers making short work of his clothes. They didn’t kiss so much as fight for dominance with teeth and lips and tongue. It was rough, desperate and driven more by need than desire. It didn’t feel like a first time – it felt like the tenth, the fiftieth, the hundredth time. He knew how to twist her hair to make her gasp. He knew how to kiss the spot behind her ear to make her whimper. He knew exactly how to pick her apart, piece by piece, and how to put her back together.

Afterwards, while she examined her bruises in the mirror and as she gathered her clothes, Landry asked if this would affect her career.

‘I have ambitions,’ she explained, and waved a hand, ‘and _that_ is not worth jeopardising them.’

‘It wasn’t that bad,’ Lorca said, lounging on the bed and watching her move with feigned disinterest. ‘You seemed to enjoy yourself.’ She looked at him. ‘No, no one will know. Or _I,_ at least, wouldn’t tell. Will you?’

Landry pulled her hair into a ponytail again and told him not to be an idiot. She left without another word, not looking at him and not giving him a kiss good night. She did not think about how his mouth and hands had felt on her body.

 

* * *

 

It became a routine, of sorts. Landry would let herself into Lorca’s quarters, and sit, dressed and professional, at his desk until he would come back after his shift. The undressing was always swift: she would strip herself or she would let his restless fingers tear at her clothes. She would work his clothes off for him, her eyes fixed on him, pulling away if he tried to kiss her. When they did kiss, the kisses were frantic and biting, passionate and needy and perfect. Afterwards, sometimes, he would run his fingertips over her back and kiss her shoulder blades and tell her she was beautiful. She would sit up, unabashed at her nakedness, and tell him she didn’t really care if he thought that. This wasn’t a relationship.

It was relief, nothing else. A mutual convenience of pent-up frustration met in sex, pure and simple. No emotions.

She would leave afterwards, getting dressed without speaking. She wasn’t interested in talking about her life, and she wasn’t interested in talking about his life, and she wasn’t interested in finding out how his hands knew exactly how to touch her.

When they worked together, they made no reference to their late-night trysts. They both heard the rumours, the susurration among the crew that a captain as cold as Lorca could only find solace with someone as icy as commander Landry. If someone made a reference to it in front of Landry, she would stare them down until they offered to take a double shift. At her quarterly medical examination, she lied to doctor Culber, scoffing at the suggestion that there was anyone on board that she would even consider sleeping with. She wondered if Lorca lied as well.

 

* * *

 

One night, after the door hissed and closed, Landry spoke.

‘I heard you talked to your old flame today.’

‘The crew’s gossiping about me again?’ Lorca was already by her, his fingers untucking her shirt, fingertips tracing the dips of her back.

‘They never stop.’ Her reply was a murmur as Lorca rested his face against her hair, and she was aware of their height difference, self-conscious of the way he towered over her when he held her in his arms. She stayed still as he kissed her hair, her ear, her neck. His hands, cold against her skin, roamed where he could reach.

‘I guess that’s true.’ She felt him smile against her skin before he pulled back and started unzipping his uniform. ‘Why are you asking about Kat?’

‘I thought of not coming tonight.’ Landry hated admitting this, reluctant to show any weakness. She was just as strong as Lorca and this meant nothing to her.

‘Oh, I’m sure we can arrange that.’ She hated his cheap jokes, and she hated the way he tipped her chin up with finger and thumb. She hated his self-satisfied smirk. ‘Are you jealous, Ellen?’

‘Don’t call me Ellen.’ She hated her name, how soft and round it was. It was the name of a child who loved butterflies and unicorns. It wasn’t the name of a soldier. It wasn’t the name of someone who was kissed the way he kissed her. ‘Are you still sleeping together?’ He was undressing her but paused at the question, head cocked to one side.

‘No. We’re not _sleeping_ together. We haven’t for years.’ He sounded amused at her choice of words. ‘How did you know about her?’

‘You’re not that good a liar. I see it on your face. There is something when you talk about her.’ Why, she asked herself, why would she ask about this? How stupid could you be? She didn’t care; she wasn’t here to talk; they were both wearing too much. She began undressing, tearing at her jacket, pulling at her hair tie, letting her hair fall and frame her face. Lorca caught her hands and held them fast. She knew, from experience, that she could not get out of this grip. She would writhe and wriggle and Lorca would smile and hold her down, until she told him to let her go. He always did. She rarely asked.

‘And how do I look at you?’ His voice, low and growling; his eyes piercing.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ she lied, ‘I don’t look at you.’

‘Well if you do, let me know what you see.’ He let her hands go, and kissed her. This kiss was slow, his thumbs tracing patterns on her jawline, his fingers running through her hair. This was not the kiss of a mutual convenience, but something else, something that Landry would not put a name to. He carried her to his bed – she, feather-light in his arms – and she allowed herself, for once, to feel.

 

* * *

 

Gabriel Lorca fucked the way he commanded a spaceship. He was decisive, certain and unyielding. And yet, Landry couldn’t imagine it any other way. His eyes glittered when he kneeled for her, his smile curled in satisfaction when she clawed at his sheets. When he kissed her, she could taste herself on his mouth. He was teasing, murmuring her name – _oh, Ellen, you sweet thing_ – when she came for him. She never called him by his name, _Gabriel_ too heavy and intimate in her mouth, _Lorca_ too professional, too dismissive. When she did speak, it was a mess of swearing and incoherent whimpers. When it was over, she would feel embarrassed by the marks she left down his back, but she never apologised, stolid when he pulled her back down for another kiss.

Some nights, he was tender, laughing and happy. He kissed her neck and told her she was beautiful. Other nights, he was rough and quiet, his face set and his hands bruising. She preferred those, because then it was easier to separate from what she knew – and denied, even denied to herself – she was feeling.

Because this was the truth: she would die for her captain.

 

* * *

 

When Michael Burnham came aboard, commander Landry didn’t think much of it at first. She was another piece of trash. That Lorca wanted to see her wasn’t too strange: she was an oddity. She fought like a Vulcan, precise, unfeeling, and unimpressive. Landry didn’t like her. She waited outside Lorca’s ready room when he interviewed her, and she saw the look on his face when Burnham left. She didn’t like that, either. But she bit her tongue – in a day, maybe two, the mutineer would be gone.

If one disregarded the mutiny, and the fact that she had started the worst war in more than a century, Burnham seemed to have been a competent officer. Landry could reluctantly see aspects of herself in Burnham: her silence, precision and focus were all things that, had she been anyone else, she would have admired. As it was it, she found it grating. She was too quiet, too humble and yet, somehow, arrogant. They worked well together on the _Glenn_. They achieved the mission.

At the debriefing, alone in his ready room, Lorca asked her to bring aboard the creature – _the beast_ , he murmured as he looked at the corpse of the _Glenn_ . When the creature was on board, secure in Lorca’s private lab, Landry waited for him, even though her shift had ended hours before. They watched the controlled explosion of the _Glenn_ together, and she had never felt so safe.

‘Then I think we’ll be spending some time together this evening.’ Lorca meant the creature, of course, but the way he looked at her made her think this was an invitation. And he _thanked_ her – he, Gabriel Lorca, who had never showed gratitude in his life.

‘Anything. Any time. Captain.’

She came to his quarters that night. She came for him. He buried his face in the nook of her throat and whispered that he had missed her. She was too busied by his hands on her skin, his body against hers, to think about what he meant.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, commander Landry entered the captain’s ready room without an invitation or permission.

‘What is this?’ She spat the words at him and threw a PADD on his desk, which Lorca caught before it toppled off the edge.

‘This looks like your daily orders, Commander. But I assume, with the scene you’re making, that you have some complaints?’ He cocked his head, his voice tinged with amusement. She swallowed several times before she felt able to reply. She dug her fingernails into her palm, focused on her breathing and tried to ignore the beating of her heart. She was angry and she was – _oh, fuck_ – jealous.

‘Why is she still on the ship? She should have _left_.’ Her voice was a hiss. Lorca huffed and walked around his desk, standing only a couple of feet away from her.

‘Why are you worried about Michael, Ellen?’ Her name, as always, was said with a teasing tenderness.

‘Michael? She’s _Michael_ to you? She’s a danger to this ship, _captain_ . Her very presence here puts us and our mission at risk. She puts _you_ at risk.’

‘I’m a big boy, honey. I can take care of myself.’ This was the first time Lorca had ever called her by any kind of endearment, and it threw her. She stared at him. ‘Why are you so concerned? She’s not a threat. Are you jealous again? Is that it? Do you think I’ll replace you?’ She didn’t think about it, and she hadn’t planned it,  so she was as surprised as he was when she reached up and slapped him across the face. He blinked a couple of times. When he spoke, his voice was steady. ‘Can’t keep that in the bedroom, can you?’

‘Sir, I – captain –’ she swallowed and looked away. ‘What will you do to me?’

It was insubordination, that much was clear. But what was the punishment? Demotion? A transfer? Being thrown out of Starfleet? She stood straight, head bowed, waiting for the verdict. Lorca did not speak for several moments.

‘Your orders haven’t changed. Work with Michael. Deal with the beast. Maybe you –’ and his face grew into a leer, twisted and wicked, ‘will grow to like each other. I hope you do. And as for your services – _well_. I won’t need them for a while. I’ll call for you.’

 _Services_ . That was the word he used. It echoed in her mind as she left his quarters and marched to her own quarters, stomping her boots. In the house she had grown up in, there had been doors, the old kind with hinges and handles, and she had slammed them every time she was angry. The doors on the _Discovery_ , quiet and sleek, didn’t offer that relief. She slammed her fist against the wall instead. She gave herself a couple of minutes, a little bit of time to gather herself, before she uncurled her hand and went to meet with the beastly Burnham.

In front of the monster, the ripper, Landry warned her of the captain, that he didn’t care about her, that he didn’t care about anything. _He's only interested in_ , she said and smiled at Burnham, _what you can_ do  _for him._  Maybe Landry couldn’t have Lorca, but Burnham sure as hell shouldn’t, either.

 

* * *

 

Her death, when it came, was brutal, sudden and painful. Burnham did all she could, but even as she reached for her, and even as they were transported to the sickbay, it was too late. Doctor Culber pronounced her dead. Lorca asked if he could have a moment alone with her. The doctor nodded, folded down the sheet, and ushered everyone out.

‘I’m sorry.’ Lorca stroked her hair and ran his fingers down her cheek, coagulating blood sticking to his skin. ‘But I promise: I will see you soon.’ He leaned down and planted a single kiss on her forehead. He left.

 

* * *

 

In another universe, Ellen Landry sat in a cage and waited for her captain.


End file.
